Scribblenauts is genius, maddening; Ars reviews hit of E3

Scribblenauts is finally here, and while the reality doesn't quite live up to …

Scribblenauts was the darling of E3, rounding up a hojillion awards—including a Golden Ars—and impressing everyone who stopped by for a demo. It was a game that showed very well, especially with a developer on hand to point out any number of interesting situations. The premise is simple, although it hides an abyssal depth: you are asked to either reach a star, or to fulfill the requirements to earn one. The tools at your disposal? The world.

Title

Scribblenauts

Developer

5th Cell

Publisher

Warner Bros.

Price

$29.99

Platform

Nintendo DS

You can type in or write any word you can think of, and get that item or person to help you in your quest. No dirty words, and no proper nouns, nothing copyrighted—but even without those limitations, you're looking at tens of thousands of items. Type in "pirate" to fight a ninja. Type in "bridge" to cross an expanse, or type in "motorcycle" and "ramp" and jump it. You gain currency by using fewer items, and also by using creative solutions, and you use that currency to unlock new worlds.

There are two types of levels: action levels where you simply have to get to the starite item, using your reflexes as well as your wits; and puzzle, where you are given a one-sentence instruction about what to do. It may say "get rid of the rats," and in that sentence are dozens of possibilities. In fact, you only completely clear out a level by finishing it three times, without using any item more than once. Much harder than it sounds.

The controls are way more twitchy than they need to be, and will often lead to frustrating deaths. You can attach items to each other, but the physics are weird. If you miss the connection points—say, between a jet and a chain—things can get odd as the jet does a few flips for no reason. If you try to hold a chain that's jumping for some reason and miss it? Your character thinks you're telling him to move, which is bad news when you're surrounded by lava.

You'll often find yourself calling shenanigans on some of the interactions. At one point I had to fight a dragon. A knight and a superhero were both offed by the beast. A bazooka round? No effect. A sniper rife? Nothing. A bomb? Didn't faze him. If you put a wall in front of a moving character they'll often just knock it over instead of being stopped by it. When I tried to fish a piranha out of a moat, it simply jumped over to where I was standing and ate me. Why would my spawned superhero kill a knight that was apparently guarding a castle, and cause me to fail the level?

I know the gunshots will scare the sheep, but "silencer" isn't an item in the game? Bah!

This is a frustrating, often maddening game. When you find the answer to a puzzle that has been giving you trouble it's a great feeling, but it's often overshadowed by attempts that make perfect sense, but simply don't work. The difficulty level is often wildly uneven, although that will probably differ depending on each individual. I found some puzzles way too easy; others nearly impossible. One level simply placed a tornado in your path and asked you to get past it. Sounds simple, but the weatherman didn't know what to do, it threw my truck like it was nothing, God didn't seem to want to help, but I'll be damned if a (SPOILER) didn't take care of it right quick.

The good news is that with the in-game currency system (called "ollars") you earn money by solving each puzzle well, and you don't need to finish every puzzle in every world to move forward. If you're stuck on a level or puzzle, move on to another one, and let your brain work on it while you're away from the game. I often thought of new solutions or ideas while I was supposed to be thinking of something else. This is a game that will monopolize your brain cycles.

My advice? Find a child to play with. While adults can easily get stuck in the same ruts while thinking about solutions to puzzles—I usually used a jet pack or wings to get where I was going—children seem to have no problem throwing solution after solution at problems. When a game actively rewards the thinking of children over that of adults, we're on to something special.

Conclusions

The game also gives you the ability to create your own levels, and this process is just as intuitive as the main gameplay. You create an item, place it, attach it to others, use the game's simple scripting language to set up relationships, write your own hints, and pick music. In seconds I was able to make Death scared of both Priests and Doctors, and after that my mind started to really go.

Make a cop protect the donuts. Make a hippy scared of soap. Give Jack Thompson a shout out by making gamers attracted to guns. You won't be able to stir every hornet's nest, however—I couldn't find "Bible" as an object in the game.

If you'll excuse a quick lecture: There is a leaked copy of the game out there now, and I'm sure everyone here knows where to look. Our own forum has more than a few people offering up impressions from the pirated copy of the game. I hope those who decided to treat themselves to a sneak preview decide to buy now that the game is available. For the few issues the game has, this is something undeniably new and impressive. We need to support developers and publishers who go out on a limb and create something fresh with our money. Do the industry a favor and buy if you liked it.

Originally posted by Anla-Shok:I know it isn't Nintendo's thing to do so, but I would snatch up a PC port the minute it came out. This is something casual gamers can get behind too, and many of them are on the PC.

I'm not sure why you are blaming Nintendo for this, as the game is developed by 5th Cell and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. As far as I know, there is no exclusivity agreement with Nintendo. 5th Cell chooses to focuses development on DS games, which is a good decision considering the install base.

I'll probably run and pick this up today. Good timing since I'm just mopping up the last few puzzles in Professor Layton. If it's as much fun as the reviewers have claimed I think the nephews are going to adore this game.

First of all, tough cookies. You have no place to go around saying "hmph! what are they thinking? why isn't this on MY system?"

Secondly, there is a huge plethora of awesome games on the DS to warrant a purchase of the system. (note: it doesn't have to be a DSi). Far more than the PSP, and the notion of the iPhone being a gaming competitor is hilariously absurd.

To be honest, considering the immense popularity and success of the DS, I'm incredibly shocked to find this many people reading a gaming post on a technology site who don't already have one.

I'm going to pick this up immediately after work today, I've been waiting eagerly ever since E3.

Yeah, the DS is only the most popular gaming handheld on the planet (it may even be the most popular gaming system, I dunno but it wouldn't surprise me.) Indie developers have to focus on one platform; I'm guessing a lot of people are glad it's not the PSP.

It sounds like this would be a great game to do some crowd-sourcing on. It seems like there would be a vast multitude of solutions to the various problems that are presented, and the the developers more or less thought through many of them, but couldn't possibly think through them all, nor could they think through all the possible interactions, without making the types of interactions and behaviours hopelessly simplistic. (which is the opposite of their intent)

What if people could, through the game interface, submit their solutions to the various problems, that they thought _should_ have worked, but didn't. As similar solutions flood in, the devs could look at the high-percentage ones, and incorporate that back into mini-DLC patches, to define some new interaction style or solutions.

So, for the first few months, yeah, you run into these maddening sequences that you feel should work but don't, but as the crowd-sourced solutions pile up, the game gets to work better and better. (I mean in some sense it gets easier, but in a good way, I think)

Of course this kind of interaction and DLC would be tough on the DS. Maybe something the DSi could incorporate more easily, I dunno. It's a natural for a PC game though.

Originally posted by Anla-Shok:I know it isn't Nintendo's thing to do so, but I would snatch up a PC port the minute it came out. This is something casual gamers can get behind too, and many of them are on the PC.

I'm not sure why you are blaming Nintendo for this, as the game is developed by 5th Cell and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. As far as I know, there is no exclusivity agreement with Nintendo. 5th Cell chooses to focuses development on DS games, which is a good decision considering the install base.

If I remember right, I saw an interview with one of the developers at E3 and he did hint that there might be efforts to get this game on other platforms in the future.

About time I was excited about a DS game. It should be arriving alongside my Zune HD. I'm wondering how much time I'll spend trying to beat levels rather than mess around and see what kind of havoc I can wreak with the word list.

Wow, that's a very interesting idea. I wonder how long it took to develop?

I agree with Dave Cattran - there should be some way of improving the physics/logic behind it. The developers couldn't possibly have accounted for every single interaction, so there will always be something that seems like it should work but doesn't. A built-in way to pick up those errors and correct for it over time would be useful.

Originally posted by Aurich:Already ordered, just waiting on UPS. I'm planning on sitting down with my 5 year old to do some "spelling homework".

Yeah, I've got to wait to have the cash. As soon as I do, I'm getting a DS and this for my nephew. He's just old enough to get his first real game system I think and it should be a hell of a lot more fun than those stupid electronic spelling games.

This must have been hard game to make. From my understanding English has the most words of any language (especially when you count all the ones we borrowed). I need a specter. That didn't take. Spook! Haunt! Phantasm! Apparition! Ghost! Aha, finally (at least based on speculation. I guess the thesaurus built into the game might be really huge).

For the record, the large hadron collider exists. Also, attempting to use it will cause instant death via black hole.

Speaking of which, I've found black holes particularly useful for getting rid of obstacles (SPOILER: one early level has you knocking some milk bottles over. A black hole worked. Putting the stand on fire works too).

the idea of giving you all these tools, and then saying "to get further, don't use them!" is insane.

You have to beat the level three times without using the same object twice. I don't know, though, if you are or aren't allowed to use any items from your first run. Plus there is always the start screen, which is a sandbox of sorts. I don't know what kind of limitations are on that, though, because I've got to get the game from an import store since a JP release is not likely. This is all information based off of what I have read and seen elsewhere.

"You'll often find yourself calling shenanigans on some of the interactions. At one point I had to fight a dragon. A knight and a superhero were both offed by the beast. A bazooka round? No effect. A sniper rife? Nothing. A bomb? Didn't faze him. If you put a wall in front of a moving character they'll often just knock it over instead of being stopped by it. When I tried to fish a piranha out of a moat, it simply jumped over to where I was standing and ate me. Why would my spawned superhero kill a knight that was apparently guarding a castle, and cause me to fail the level?

I know the gunshots will scare the sheep, but "silencer" isn't an item in the game? Bah!"

Wow.. that sounds damned annoying. Reminds me of some of the old text-based adventure games back in the day.. don't type something in exactly the way they want you to, and it doesn't work.

Originally posted by flintcsci:To be honest, considering the immense popularity and success of the DS, I'm incredibly shocked to find this many people reading a gaming post on a technology site who don't already have one.

DS Lite costs around here over 500 (currency), while full-time work in an entry-level job salary is around 1500, 2000 at best. Half of which goes for rent. And you cannot watch movies w/friend&family on DS, you cannot write essay to school on DS, you cannot really do much more than play games on DS.

Originally posted by Gerino:DS Lite costs around here over 500 (currency), while full-time work in an entry-level job salary is around 1500, 2000 at best. Half of which goes for rent.

Wow, that's terrible. I feel sorry for you.

quote:

And you cannot watch movies w/friend&family on DS, you cannot write essay to school on DS, you cannot really do much more than play games on DS.

Umm.... and? What's your point? The DS is a game console. Your argument tells me you simply aren't into video games to begin with, in which case I wasn't really directing my comment to you, and I can't see why you'd be interested in this game.

Originally posted by flintcsci:Umm.... and? What's your point? The DS is a game console. Your argument tells me you simply aren't into video games to begin with, in which case I wasn't really directing my comment to you, and I can't see why you'd be interested in this game.

I'm sorry, but you just insulted him. And me, frankly, since I'm in a similar position. Some gamers are young, have very low income and no savings yet, and have to be harsh with their entertainment budget. Apparently your definition of 'into video games' is 'willing to starve for months just so I can play a video game'. And I'm sure you practice what you preach, in which case I bow to your superior willpower and conviction (and ever-shrinking waistline), because you are a True Gamer, and not an infidel like me, who simply loves games a lot and plays them as much as he can.

Obviously the true mark of one's love for something is how much money you've poured into it. We'll try not to stink up the place for you True Gamers.

Originally posted by Matt_H:I'm sorry, but you just insulted him. And me, frankly, since I'm in a similar position. Some gamers are young, have very low income and no savings yet, and have to be harsh with their entertainment budget. Apparently your definition of 'into video games' is 'willing to starve for months just so I can play a video game'. And I'm sure you practice what you preach, in which case I bow to your superior willpower and conviction (and ever-shrinking waistline), because you are a True Gamer, and not an infidel like me, who simply loves games a lot and plays them as much as he can.

Obviously the true mark of one's love for something is how much money you've poured into it. We'll try not to stink up the place for you True Gamers.

The DS has been out since November 2004 (US). I'm not saying everybody should just abandon all other priorities right this second and go buy a DS. But if you were truly interested in the DS (and like I said in my first comment, there are many MANY excellent games for it - not just Scribblenauts), you've had plenty of time to save up and buy one. Hence my surprise that anybody who fits the Ars demographic doesn't already have one.

Secondly, anybody who puts down the DS because it can't do all sorts of other things really just doesn't get it. It sounds like somebody who really doesn't play video games (regularly, at least) but instead is an avid user of their latest smartphone doohickey and they expect all doohickeys to be able to do these things. *Of course* all you can do is play games on the DS - that's what it was made for. I don't see people going "why aren't Mario and Zelda games being released for the iPhone?" so why is it that people are so shocked that Scribblenauts, far from being the first DS game ever, is only on the DS?